San Francisco (CNN)The gun used in the killing of a San Francisco woman in a case that gave new political prominence to the issue of illegal immigration was stolen from a vehicle belonging to a federal Bureau of Land Management agent, a source familiar with the investigation said Wednesday. Kate Steinle was shot to death on July 1 on one of San Francisco's busiest piers. The .40-caliber pistol was a personal weapon, not an official firearm, the source said. Investigators still are trying to determine how Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, the man accused in Steinle's killing, allegedly obtained the weapon, according...

It is time for states to undertake specific steps to re-assert their 10th amendment rights against the usurpations of the federal government. We are, after all, the United States of America, not the United Federal Government of America.

<p>The technical details are a little difficult here so let’s put it this way – idiotic and utterly incompetent government officials outsourced IT management of highly sensitive information to companies that had some workers in China, and gave them complete and total access to that database.</p>

WASHINGTON DC – As officials of the Obama administration announced that millions of sensitive records associated with current and past federal employees and contractors had been exposed by a long-running infiltration of the networks and systems of the Office of Personnel Management on June 4, they claimed the breach had been found during a government effort to correct problems with OPM’s security. An OPM statement on the attack said that the agency discovered the breach as it had “undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture.” And a DHS spokesperson told Ars that “interagency partners” were helping the OPM...

The FBI is operating a small air force to spy on Americans Associated Press Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan and Eric Tucker, Associated Press Jun. 2, 2015, WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned. The planes' surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge's approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency...

CHICAGO — Barbara Byrd-Bennett has resigned as chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools amid a federal investigation into a $20.5 million no-bid contract. **SNIP** The investigation centers on a $20.5 million no-bid contract at CPS related to an elite nonprofit education group that has long been at the center of city school reform efforts. Federal corruption investigators have also sought records related to some of Byrd-Bennett's top deputies. Byrd-Bennett, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, acknowledged when she went on leave that her presence could divert attention from the pressing affairs of the district as it tackles labor...

Â Â I heard a man speak on Tony Brownâ€™s Journal in the 1980s, on the thesis that the Federal Reserve System is a tax-farming system, creating monies out of nothing, loaning them to the United States, charging interest that must be repaid with taxes. It sounds paranoiac, until you learn that the Federal Reserve Act was closely associated with the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution establishing the Federal Income Tax.Â Now that Texas is close to pushing us over the top of the number of states required to ask Congress to call a Constitutional convention, what might happen...

March 31, 2015 We suspect many local law enforcement agencies in America are going to seriously regret seeking and accepting Federal dollars over the last few years. Accepting those funds, from whatever source and for whatever purpose, may now subject local agencies to Federal "standards" that will severely restrict local autonomy in policy development and implementation. To understand what may lie ahead of law enforcement one only needs to see what has happened in public education with the usurpation of local autonomy by the U. S. Department of Education. Alex Newman, writing at NewAmerican.com reports: The Obama administration and its...

A federal judge has rejected the State Department’s plan to release most of Hillary Clinton’s emails as secretary of state in one large batch, insisting that the agency parcel out releases of the records over time.

Baltimore Is Not About Race Government-induced dependency is the problem—and it’s one with a long history. By William McGurn May 4, 2015 For those who see the rioting in Baltimore as primarily about race, two broad reactions dominate. One group sees rampaging young men fouling their own neighborhoods and concludes nothing can be done because the social pathologies are so overwhelming. In some cities, this view manifests itself in the unspoken but cynical policing that effectively cedes whole neighborhoods to the thugs. Opinion Journal Video Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jason Riley on what prompted the violence and what comes next....

Employees at the U.S. Department of Education have repeatedly treated the U.S. government’s trove of student information as a personal playground and piggy bank, according to a Freedom of Information Act release obtained by the Daily Mail.(excerpted)The Daily Mail’s inquiry found other cases of bizarre wrongdoing by the department’s 5,000 employees, including one worker who was caught searching for the student loan records of “Barrack Obama” (sic), apparently unaware that the president has already made most of his student loan details public. (excerpted)

Thanks to the litigious nature of American culture, employers in the private sector have a tough time firing people for poor performance. Misconduct, especially that caught in the act, generally is an exception to that trend. CBS News discovers thatâ€™s not the case in the federal civil-service system, where chronic bad behavior and even spending half the day watching Internet porn doesnâ€™t qualify for immediate termination. Instead, it starts a process that can last as long as two years, and often just means that managers shrug off bad behavior and bad performance â€¦ even when the employee presents a...

Nothing Inside The Federal Reserve is an independent, non partisan documentary film that examines America's central bank in a critical, yet balanced way. Narrated by the acclaimed actor Liev Schreiber, and featuring interviews with Paul Volcker, Janet Yellen, Jeremy Grantham and many of the world's best financial minds, Money For Nothing is the first film ever to take viewers inside the world's most powerful financial institution.

My report Sunday on the lucrative deal Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband has to sell 56 post office buildings barely scratched the surface of her conflicts of interest. The California Democrat’s financier husband, Richard C. Blum, is estimated to be a billionaire from his shrewd investments in companies that profit from federal policies. “For at least 15 years, Feinstein has appeared to support government contracts that push federal funds toward companies co-owned or governed by her powerful, billionaire husband, Richard C. Blum,” Breitbart News reported.

Legal eagle Alan Dershowitz is not taking the accusation that he bedded a teenage sex slave lying down. The former Harvard Law School professor has filed a sworn statement in Miami federal court "to protect his reputation" against what he calls "outrageously false" and "contemptible" allegations. Dershowitz also vowed to file disciplinary complaints against the attorneys representing his accuser, who has been identified as 30-year-old Virginia Roberts. But before Dershowitz could, the lawyers — Paul Cassell and Bradley Edwards — sued him for defamation.

**SNIP** Over the past few years, the number of security incidents at federal agencies involving the potential exposure of personal information has skyrocketed -- from about 10,400 in 2009 to more than 25,500 in 2013, according to the Government Accountability Office. There’s no data yet this year on the total number of breaches at agencies in 2014. But with the year almost in the rearview mirror, Nextgov takes a look back at the 10 most impactful, high-profile or otherwise eyebrow-raising federal agency breaches. 1. White House Hacked The Obama administration has made cybersecurity a key priority, so it must have...

In the great fiscal scheme of things, October 22, 1981 seems like only yesterday. That’s the day the US public debt crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time. It had taken the nation 74,984 days to get there (205 years). What prompts this reflection is that just a few days ago the national debt breached the $18 trillion mark; and the last trillion was added in hardly 365 days.

6:25 a.m. update: A gunman targeted at least three buildings in downtown Austin — the Mexican consulate, the federal courthouse and Austin police headquarters — early Friday morning before being shot and killed by Austin police, authorities said. Assistant Chief Raul Munguia told reporters that the suspected shooter was killed near his vehicle. The suspect was found wearing a vest of some type, Munguia said, and that the suspect’s vehicle may contain an improvised explosive device. The police bomb squad has been dispatched to secure the vest and the white SUV the suspect was using. Munguia said police are also...

More than 25,000 federal employees will lose their health plans next year as insurance providers drop out of the government’s coverage network, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Affected workers will have the option of switching to other plans within the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, but the number of disruptions will reach the highest level since more than 61,000 enrollees had to change plans in 2009. Insurance providers drop out of the federal workforce’s health program every year, so this year’s changes are nothing new. Companies generally leave the network because they have not attracted enough enrollees to...

Republicans take control of US Senate, increase their House majority for Obama's final 2 years Article by: DAVID ESPO , Associated Press Updated: November 5, 2014 - 7:45 AM WASHINGTON — Riding a powerful wave of voter discontent, resurgent Republicans captured control of the Senate and tightened their grip on the House Tuesday night in elections certain to complicate President Barack Obama's final two years in office. Republican Mitch McConnell led the way to a new Senate majority, dispatching Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky after a $78 million campaign of unrelieved negativity. Voters are "hungry for new leadership....

Feds Retaliate against the Bundy Ranch and the Southern Nevada People On Friday October 10th, 2014 a Notice from the federal registry reveals that the federal government is mounting retaliations against the Bundy family and the Southern Nevada people. Federal Register / Vol. 79, No.197 Notice, outlines plans to make the Bundy ranch and most of the rest of Southern Nevada, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs). 90 days from October 10th, 2014 these proposals will become federal law without consent from the Nevada State legislatures or the people of Southern Nevada. Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs) are human...

Tens of thousands of federal workers are being kept on paid leave for at least a month — and often for longer stretches that can reach a year or more — while they wait to be punished for misbehavior or cleared and allowed to return to work, government records show. During a three-year period that ended last fall, more than 57,000 employees were sent home for a month or longer. The tab for these workers exceeded $775 million in salary alone. The extensive use of administrative leave continues despite government personnel rules that limit paid leave for employees facing discipline...

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Texas from enforcing voter ID requirements just weeks ahead of the November elections, knocking down a law that the U.S. Justice Department condemned in court as the state’s latest means of suppressing minority turnout. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi is a defeat for Republican-backed photo ID measures that have swept across the U.S. in recent years and mostly been upheld in court. However, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night blocked Wisconsin from implementing a law requiring voters to present photo IDs.

WASHINGTON — Democrats have reversed the partisan imbalance on the federal appeals courts that long favored conservatives, a little-noticed shift with far-reaching consequences for the law and President Obama’s legacy. For the first time in more than a decade, judges appointed by Democratic presidents considerably outnumber judges appointed by Republican presidents. The Democrats’ advantage has only grown since late last year when they stripped Republicans of their ability to filibuster the president’s nominees. Democratic appointees who hear cases full time now hold a majority of seats on nine of the 13 United States Courts of Appeals. When Mr. Obama took...

This week, the Heartland Institute offered up a modest proposal: Eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency's 15,000-person staff, move the headquarters from Washington to Topeka, Kan., and reload it with 300 state delegates. The policy brief from the libertarian think tank that promotes climate skepticism—written by Heartland science director Jay Lehr—is something of a dream scenario for tea partiers and other conservatives, who would like a smaller government and a chance to wipe clean EPA's federal regulations. Lehr writes that "incremental reform of EPA is simply not an option," hence his proposal for a "Committee of the Whole" made up of...

A federal judge ordered the IRS Thursday to explain under oath how it lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency's tea party controversy. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan gave the tax agency a month to submit the explanation in writing. Sullivan said he is also appointing a federal magistrate to see if lost emails can be obtained from other sources. Sullivan issued the order as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group. He said the IRS declaration must be signed, under oath, by the...

WASHINGTON — Federal officials can’t resolve 85 percent of 2.9 million “inconsistencies” on applications for ObamaCare even after nine months of trying, according to new data provided by the administration. Most of the problems involve certifying citizenship and income, key components of the national health plan. But some of the problems are downright nutty. One unidentified state-run marketplace cited situations in which infants and young children were “erroneously identified as incarcerated, according to federal data,” the inspector general for the Health and Human Services Department revealed Tuesday. Just 425,000 problematic applications have been resolved out of 2.9 million that states...

President Obama declared Thursday that 99 percent of federal employees are not boneheads. "Are there some federal workers who do some boneheaded things? Absolutely,” Obama said at a town hall meeting in Minneapolis, Politico reported. The president recalled something that former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told him: “One thing you should know, Mr. President, is that at any given moment on any given day, somebody in the federal government is screwing up.” That, said Obama, is "is true because there are 2 million employees … If 99 percent of the folks are doing the right thing and only 1 percent aren’t, that’s...

Today my family and I had need of entering a federal building. In the process of doing so we encountered the following crazy federal hangups. 1) one family member had a pair of child's sissors they forgot about. these had to be removed and kept up front before we were allowed entrance to the building. now bear in mind thousands of kids take the very same kind of sissors to the gun free zones known as schools every day without a care. in fact, the schools often supply the "deadly" weapons. 2) another family member had left their driver's license...

Big Labor's VA Choke Hold How Democrats put their union allies before the well-being of veterans. By Kimberley A. Strassel May 29, 2014 We know with certainty that there is at least one person the Department of Veterans Affairs is serving well. That would be the president of local lodge 1798 of the National Federation of Federal Employees. The Federal Labor Relations Authority, the agency that mediates federal labor disputes, earlier this month ruled in favor of this union president, in a dispute over whether she need bother to show up at her workplace—the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Martinsburg,...

MILWAUKEE, WI — The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is not a violation of constitutional rights if police break down a citizen’s door, search the home, and confiscate firearms, so long that they believe it is in the citizen’s best interest. A Doctor’s Concern The lawsuit stems back to an incident that occurred on May 22, 2011. A psychiatrist, Dr. Michelle Bentle, phoned police to report that a patient had expressed a suicidal thought during an outpatient appointment; the woman had received some bad news and privately expressed grief during a difficult appointment. At approximately...

Under a new program implemented by education czar Arne Duncan, employees from the federal department of education will be placed in schools throughout the nation to oversee their operations and ensure they’re following federal guidelines and procedures. This doesn’t sound so horrible, until you remember that the federal government isn’t supposed to have any hand in education and they’re continually telling us that their role is ‘limited’.

Americans have become increasingly concerned about the federal government's seizure of privately-held lands and property, especially after the Cliven Bundy incident in Nevada. Now another land owner, Bill Johnson of Temecula, California, claims his property at Vail Lake, the largest privately-owned lake in California, is being threatened by the county, state, and federal governments. Johnson purchased 11,000 acres of land in Riverside County over 17 years ago, including Vail Lake, encompassing over 1,000 square surface acres of water. Now Johnson claims various levels of government are trying to seize the property, using intimidation under the guise of environmental concerns. Johnson...

There ought to be a law prohibiting Massachusetts politicians from writing books that few people actually read, especially when they write them on company time. Nevertheless, the politicians still make money on these quickie books, thanks to outrageous advances from publishers. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, now being feted by crazed liberals as the possible next president of the United States, is only the latest example of a politician seeking to cash in on her newfound fame. Gov. Deval Patrick did it, getting a $1.3 million advance for his book. Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown followed suit with a book of...

Madison: "Should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in...

Cliven Bundy marched into my life one Friday morning in January 1992 in a protest bound for a federal courthouse in Las Vegas. He held up one side of a street-width banner that asked, “Has the West been won or has the fight just begun?” To my great relief, just as Bundy promised, nearly 200 ranchers from all over the state marched behind him, yelling “Property rights!” Nearly a mile later, the marchers fell silent and filed into the courtroom where Wayne Hage of Pine Creek Ranch faced arraignment for the felony of cleaning brush out of his ditches without...

Agents In FBI Shooting Working On Drug Investigation April 12, 2014 10:43 PM OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Baltimore County police say a man is dead after FBI agents opened fire on the person in a busy shopping area in Owings Mills. The agents confronted the man in an SUV late Friday afternoon on an access road near a Wal-Mart store and Sam’s Club near Reisterstown Road. Officials released little information about the incident and did not identify the man who died.

A newly-released video has captured the moment a rancher's son was tasered by federal agents and the use of force has today provoked fresh outrage among libertarian groups across the country. Ammon Bundy, the son of the Nevada rancher locked in an increasingly tense land dispute with the federal government, is shown being shot with a taser and threatened by police dogs. The confrontation took place Wednesday and was caught on video by Bundy supporters and relatives who got into an aggressive- and at times violent- face off with the officers. 'Watching that video last night created a visceral reaction...

President Obama is imposing his policies directly on federal contractors. This week, he will sign an executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay with each other. The prohibition on the wage "gag rules" is similar to language in a Senate bill aimed at closing a pay gap between men and women. That legislation is scheduled for a vote this week, though it is not likely to pass. In addition, Obama on Tuesday will direct the Labor Department to adopt regulations requiring federal contractors to provide compensation data based on sex and race....

Photo taken from EPA promotional video. THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW GETTING LONGER: The number of law enforcement agents, such as these from the Environmental Protection Agency, have grown in recent years. Â By Rob Nikolewski â”‚ New Mexico WatchdogSANTA FE, N.M. Â— In late February, four federalÂ agents carrying side arms with a drug-sniffing dog descended on the Taos Ski Valley in what was called a Â“saturation patrol.Â”Authorities were working on tips of possible drug selling and impaired driving in the ski resortÂ’s parking lot and surrounding area.But the agents werenÂ’t from the FBI, ATF or even the Drug...

When an expectant mother visits her doctor for an ultrasound, the doctor invariably asks: Do you want to know the sex of your child? The Obama administration, however, does not believe an unborn child has a sex — even when a doctor sees indisputable physical evidence. Obama's Office of Personnel Management has published what it calls "Guidance Regarding the Employment of Transgender Individuals in the Workplace." This document speaks of "sex" as something a person has "assigned" to them only after they make it through the birth canal. "Transgender individuals are people with a gender identity that is different from...

A federal judge in Kansas on Wednesday ruled that the federal agency which oversees the federal voter registration form must include the state-specific proof-of-citizenship requirements requested by both Kansas and Arizona. The ruling was hailed by Republican officials in both states. And it also does away with the need for the "two-tier" voting systems that were proposed while the case was pending. “This is a huge victory for the states of Kansas and Arizona," Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) said in a statement. "They have successfully protected our sovereign right to set and enforce the qualifications for registering...

The FBI secretly kept tabs on Nicholas Michael Teausant for six months, having a confidential informant meet with him repeatedly in Stockton at breakfast joints, a park and a flea market as the 20-year-old student allegedly spun his vision of jihad against the United States. Federal court papers say Teausant talked for months of his desire to train fighters in Syria, to bomb the Los Angeles subway system over the New Year’s Day holiday and to spark a civil war that would topple the U.S. government. :snip: In Internet postings quoted in the complaint, as well as conversations Teausant had...

The federal government’s changes to school lunch menus have been disastrous, causing problems for cafeterias trying to comply with the rules and leaving the menu so expensive or unpalatable that more than 1 million students have stopped buying lunch, according to a government audit released Thursday. One school district told federal investigators that it had to add unhealthy pudding and potato chips to its menu to meet the government’s minimum calorie requirements. Other school districts removed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from their elementary school menus. Five of the eight school districts surveyed by the Government Accountability Office, the official...

Federal labor leaders are disappointed with President Obama’s proposal to raise federal employee pay by 1 percent next year. The proposal will be included in the administration’s budget, which Obama will announce next week. His spending plan also will include a 1 percent raise for members of the military. “I strongly believe that federal employees deserve more, and this amount is inadequate,” said Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). “There is no question in my mind that inadequate raises will have consequences on recruitment and retention.” Kelley says a 3.3 percent increase would be “fair...